Overcoming Gender Stereotypes: A Depiction of Six Swedish Students in Non-Traditional Fields

Sammanfattning: The study investigates the factors that encouraged six Swedish students to choose a femaleor male-dominated field of study in higher education. This is of interest as gender normsand stereotypes may inflict and limit students' educational choices. The purpose is likewiseto elucidate the educational choices from a gender perspective. The study explores twoquestions: “Which factors may have encouraged the students to opt for a non-traditionalcareer?” “How can the students’ educational choices be understood from a genderperspective?”. To fulfil the purpose and question of issue a qualitative method was used,including female and male students aged 22–36. For the analyse of the interviews, the studyrelies on the theoretical framework of Linda Gottfredson – The Theory of Circumscription,Compromise and Self-Creation, Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) by Lent, Brown &Hackett and The Stereotypical Gender Contract by Hirdman. The results indicate thatstudents' non-traditional educational choices consist of both internal and external factors.On the one hand, it is possible to find explanations in upbringings that have been moretolerant regarding gender roles. It has also been shown that several of the students invarious ways have been exposed to the profession through past experiences. Nevertheless,there are also personal motives that led to the choice of education as well as a supportivenetwork in form of family members and significant persons in the environment. From agender perspective, this means that the students, through their upbringing, where it appearsto have been less strict attitudes concerning gender roles, also contributed to lessrestrictions on their educational choice. On the other hand, the results imply that harmfulgender norms and stereotypes still affect students’ choice of occupation why more work isneeded in order to stop these negative patterns.